Issues in Systematic Theology – serie

If «the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity», as Karl Rahner said, then what difference does it make for how we read the Bible? This book takes up the discussion that has dominated the last several decades of Trinitarian theology – that of Rahner’s Rule – and brings it into dialogue with the longer history of the doctrine, particularly with the history of interpretation of scripture. The history of Trinitarianism is the history of complex interpretive moves, a long conversation in which the Christian church has sought to learn how to ask the right questions of scripture. Surveying recent theological projects and learning from their successes and failures, The Image of the Immanent Trinity argues that the eternally perfect fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit is truly present for our salvation in Christ who, as the image of the invisible God, secures God’s presence in the economy of salvation as the image of the immanent Trinity.

There is growing recognition that an account of God’s attributes is central to the church’s proclamation. This study presents three probing twentieth-century accounts – those of Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, and Wolf Krötke – each of whom reformulated the classical shape of the doctrine. Giving particular attention to the divine glory, the case is made that God, rather than being an unthinkable and unspeakable horizon, is the glorious One, whose glory is his self-communication and the unifying horizon of attribution.

Early in his theological development, the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, used a philosophical method called dialectic to organize his theological framework. In recent years, rather intense discussion has arisen over the source of Barth's dialectic and whether it remained in effect during the later period of the writing of Church Dogmatics or it diminished in importance under the new rubric of analogy. Terry L. Cross examines the sources of Barth's dialectic and investigates how it continues to operate alongside analogy within Barth's doctrine of God in Church Dogmatics. The conclusion is that Barth's doctrine of God will not work without his special dialectic and analogy – a dialectica fidei as well as an analogia fidei.

This book examines a little-known facet of Karl Barth’s theology: his account of the practical or self-involving character of faith. Joseph L. Mangina helps to dispel the myth of Barth as an enemy of the human subject by guiding the reader through key texts from the Church Dogmatics. Examining such themes as religious experience, sin, emotion, and moral agency, Mangina shows that Barth is not merely a skilled dogmatic theologian, but a thoughtful and sensitive interpreter of the Christian life.

This new work by Australian scholar Mark R. Lindsay explores the controversial issue of whether and how the Swiss theologian Karl Barth responded to the antisemitic policies of Nazi Germany. Drawing on, and arguing against, recent debates within the fields of Barthian, Holocaust, and Kirchenkampf literature, Lindsay argues that not only were Barth’s political actions in thoroughgoing opposition to both the Nazi regime and its inherent antisemitism, but that this stance was firmly based on his dogmatic theology, in particular, the Church Dogmatics. On the basis of his interpretation of Barth’s theology and its particular political expressions (such as the 1934 Barmen Declaration), Lindsay rejects the commonly held assumption that Barth was indifferent to the Jewish plight and suggests that his resistance was at least as comprehensive as Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s.